Tuesday, 24 March 2009

Well, it was lucky we had so much money in savings because the landlord has recently started charging a rather hefty deposit on any furnishings in the apartment when you move in. It cost us about $17,000 to move into our new place in Exeter and it was only the kitchen and bathroom that had anything at all in it!

Mina had barely walked in the front door when she felt the familiar pangs of labour coming on. She told me later she was wondering why the hell our new neighbour Ben was just standing there instead of going to find me.

I did get there, finally. Just in time to witness the birth of our daughter Abigail. She's got brown hair like me and brown eyes like Mina.

And while all this was going on, Jonas was quietly occupying himself in our bedroom with the new activity table we got him. There was no room for anything like that in our old apartment, so he's thrilled. We probably should have rethought placement though because he's kind of always in there now.

Mina was a bit worried about caring for 2 kids, even though Jonas is so independent, so she's been reading all sorts of parenting books lately.

As it turned out though, Abigail didn't give us any trouble at all as a baby. We were able to anticipate most of her needs (being experienced parents now and all!) so she barely even cried.

Heh. That didn't start until she turned one. She's got a real set of lungs on her, my little girl!

Lucky she's so cute! She usually gets what she wants. I just hope we're not spoiling her by catering to her every whim the minute she screams.

Jonas has started bringing home friends after school. Madelyn Nihill came over the other day, looking like she was frozen to the core.

Which is sort of odd, now that I think about it. It's winter but it's been warm enough lately that Mina has taken Abigail to the playground outside our apartment without even bothering to bring their coats.

Mina claims that Abby is less distracted out there and concentrates on learning her words better. Maybe she's right - she seems to be coming along.

If I was a toddler though, I think those riding llama things would be sufficient distraction!

Mina does all the fun llama-related activities with Abby and I get stuck potty training her. Yay.

No sooner was I talking about unseasonable warmth than we had a really heavy snowfall. The snow outside was ankle deep! Jonas was excited to be able to build his first snowman.

Okay. Before you say anything, Mina and I have an understanding about this sort of thing. We both really wanted a relatively traditional family unit but neither of us were keen on the monogamy that usually comes with it.

So we allow each other to have purely physical relationships with other people. It's pretty rare that I even see the women I sleep with more than once or twice and I know Mina is the same with her men. It works for us and our marriage is a hell of a lot healthier than my sister's marriage. What a hot mess that is.

Anyway, we're probably going to have to start keeping all that to a minimum from now on or at least, do it out of the apartment. Jonas is at an age where it would probably upset him if he found out and he won't be happy playing with his sister forever.

So for now, we've got a pretty happy little family here. Except for the fact that I'm losing my hair. Not too thrilled about that.

Random pic that didn't really fit:I'm so putting the vacationactions hack back in. I forgot how much they do tai chi without it! And there's Abigail, on the night of her 5th birthday. She must have been in the room while Mina was Tai Chi'ing one day, because her Fitness enthusiasm was lit up before she became a child.

Notes:

I love Pescado's apartment hack. Supposedly it allows apartments at Uni (it's so dumb how Maxis didn't allow it in the first place) but I mostly got it to take yet more money away from my Sims. It's silly how they move out and get money for the furniture they theoretically don't even own.

Parenting is such a pointless skill, if you ask me. Mina only studied it because she had the want. You can pretty much care for babies without ever doing anything other than feeding and changing nappies.

I figure Romance Sims married to each other, with ACR installed anyway, are open marriage kind of people. One of these days, I'm going to set one of my families to Maxis jealous and watch the drama though.

Pascal is over 45 now, the age when my Sims gain wrinkles and have their emo hair forcefully removed from them.

This entry has gone up 22 hours early, due to a dumb mistake I made. I hope it still shows up on your feeds as new!

I am REALLY enjoying your blog! So you've added ages to your profiles. Do you update the age at the end of round (on the profile?) I would like to start putting links in my posts but I haven't done it before.

Its really neat how you handle this romance marriage, and it would be fun too to see the drama of a Maxis jealousy version! Boy, I like the Pescado jealousy mod though.

I just recently put in that apartment hack too. I agree that it's silly they get money for the furniture when they move out!

Pascal and Mina certainly have a different view on marriage than the traditional thinking, but if it works for them, go for it! ;) LOL, it would be funny to see the craziness the Maxis jealousy causes.

I like the photos on the wall. Those look like the photos from the photo booth blown up and I've seen someone else that had those like that too. How did you do them? Is there a hack that easily does it or did you do it using some photoshopping?

For romance Sims, Pascal and Mina do seem very fond of each other. They get the multiple woohoo and make out wants but whenever there's a want to do something romantic to someone specific, it's only ever to each other. So that does suggest to me that all their skanking is just for the woohoo and not any real desire to stray.

The blown up photo pics are from the Hacked Objects section at Aussie Topenders. There are a few other kinds of hacked photo frames there too. They are very cool, you just click on them and choose which Sims you want to be in the photo and what kind of pose you want them to be in.